The 'Lord' of the West
by YellowWomanontheBrink
Summary: 30 Crossovers #4- Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are. A time of change brings about a new era for humans, and Nurarihyon is determined to be the harbinger of it for youkai.


**YellowWomanontheBrink back with a new fiction instead of an update for her many, many WIP. Though being serious I haven't written anything in maybe six months because life is shit (what else is new!). First time posting anything I've ever written in Inuyasha, though I wrote this maybe a year ago, IDK, and rescued it from the depths of my massive unposted works collection. Part of a larger crossover verse I've been writing. Any inaccuracies and mistakes are my own. Timeline I have places the formation of Nura Clan right at the start of the Edo period. Inuyasha ends some ~80 years earlier. Enjoy and review!**

**The 'Lord' of the West**

"Kasugayama, huh?" the Nurarihyon puzzled over the maps with his closest subordinate, Gyuki, by his side. "Out of our way…"

"Unless you would desire to meet him on the road," Gyuki muttered, "and that is taking a chance I am not certain you would want to take."

"He certainly can't be more frightening than the fox bitch," Nurarihyon's hand drifted to his covered chest, the phantom ache of his missing heart sharpening suddenly.

"No, and unquestionably less cunning and charismatic," Gyuki retorted. "He does not rule, not in a proper clan, but if we want this to work, especially in the West, then we need him."

"Not a proper lord?"

"I don't know," Gyuki folded his hands, "but no one will address him otherwise to his face."

"That's good enough," Nurarihyon cracked his neck, rolling up the map and delicately sliding it into the cannister it belonged in, shoving it carefully into the pack. "Where's Setsura?"

Gyuki tilted his head up and delicately sniffed the air. "Near. Probably bathing. She should be with us soon enough."

"We'll meet up with Hihi and the rest of the yakou by nightfall," Nurarihyon said, squinting into the dying sunlight. The moon would be waxing, near full, if he remembered correctly. He hoped the information they'd wheedled out of the hanyou was good.

There was much at stake here.

As the Lord of Pandemonium, Hagoromo Gitsune had promoted a lifestyle of preying upon humans. Nurarihyon was not particularly tender for their plight, but he could see that it was unsustainable. No people could advance and survive on a system of rampant bloodshed. It was an agenda she pushed gleefully for her own reasons, and her reasons were disgustingly selfish— a manic obsession with the revival of her dead son, a love twisted beyond recognition.

Foxes were weak, but in her legend, drive, and fearlessness, she was terrifying. Thinking of her sent shudders of hatred down his spine. The pain was too fresh.

"Oi," Gyuki's rough voice snapped him from his rapidly darkening thoughts easily. "Wake up. Setsura's nearby. This is not the time to brood."

Nurarihyon shot Gyuki a confident smirk he didn't really feel. "Yes," he murmured. "And I was thinking, not brooding."

"With you, it is all the same."

Before Nurarihyon could reply to that, Setsura glided through the foliage. The flowers withered at winter's bitter cold touch.

"All done!" she grinned. "Have you set our course for the night?"

"North, to meet Hihi on the spur on the edge of Gyuki's territory, then from there straight west to Kasugayama."

Her face fell into a scowl. Of all those who swore brotherhood to Nurarihyon, Setsura had been there first, and so she knew as much of this youkai as Nurarihyon did.

"Is this really necessary, Gyuki-san?" she asked. "It seems a little ridiculous. We've conquered every other clan east to the sea, and those unconquered could see reason for the ceasefire easily enough. Must we search out this shadow-lord? Can we not approach the real clan heads?"

"Mm, no," Nurarihyon tapped his lips, "Not according to Gyuki, at least." And with that, the Lord of Pandemonium was content to flop onto the ground and close his eyes. Well, not completely. He could feel the disdain of the beast youkai eyes on him as he was abandoned to explain why he brought the most loyal members of his clan on a hellish journey.

"In the west, a disgusting sort of youkai rule,"his mouth twitched. "They are weak, in presence and _osore_, and turn to methods to advance themselves that threaten us all. Slovenly creatures that can only reap fear through the basest of all horrors."

Nurarihyon kept quiet, for it was such a youkai that ended the Umewekamaru, four hundred years ago. The old Gyuki had a man-devouring beast, and Nurarihyon knew that hatred that he felt for the fox paled before the hatred Gyuki had for his predecessor.

"We can do nothing for Kyoto," he said grimly, "That land is beyond the reproach of the Nura Clan, and the Lord of Pandemonium. It is the base of the humans; let it belong to them. But there is much we can do for the other clans of this land, and therefore our clan."

One eye slid open and watched Setsura, measuring her reaction to Gyuki's word. Her delicate nose wrinkled and she touched the soft silk of her kimono to her lips.

"Make our reputation precede us, huh?" abruptly her considering frown turned into a wicked grin. "I like it! And imagine that-a Nura Clan spread from coast to coast."

Imagine that, Nurarihyon thought to himself, watching the orange sky fade to red through the dense foliage.

"You just missed Karasu-tengu," Nurarihyon said, "He brought word from the hanyou in Edo."

"That's why we're going to Kasugayama?"

"Indeed," for once, a brief bolt of emotion tore through his empty chest. It was a feeling of anticipation, such as he had not felt since he last enthralled Gyuki's clan. "Let us see what this Sesshoumaru of the West has to offer us."

* * *

They set out at nightfall, and found Hihi and Karasu-tengu by the time the near-full moon was high in the sky. They had left behind Oboru-guruma in order to forsake the roads— they held Nura territory well, but they were not interested in meeting every challenger and clan west of Mt. Nejireme. Youkai were not the type to let trespass go.

And trespassers they were. They moved together, the five of them, in the field of darkness that was the night, and made camp and rested by day. Such was the force of their collective _osore_ that the forest fell dead silent around them, and no weak youkai or land gods thought to contest their presence.

The journey was suspiciously easy. They were not waylaid or attacked, not by humans, samurai, or onmyoji.

"Tell me of this Sesshoumaru of the West," Setsura asked Hihi and Gyuki one day as they trekked companionably through the forest.

"He's a dog," Hihi, who had once met him on the road nearly one hundred years ago and had been the one to advise them to approach him the same way the Nura Clan had approached the Great Apes— on foot, in a strong band, with a great show of force. "And as obedient as one. A feral dog who lost his only master nearly three hundred years ago."

"The Inu no Taisho," Gyuki added gravely. If he were not as powerful as he was, he would have shuddered, for three hundred years had not been enough to diminish the Great Dog General's reputation for brutality and his sheer size and power. He had been a successful conqueror in a warring era. "He was a powerful, if foolish youkai."

"They used to call them _daiyoukai_," Hihi said idly. "When they grew so powerful they were as a force of nature."

"And so his son is called the same," Gyuki continued. "Unfavored but well-used by his father, he spent the years after his father's death killing every _daiyoukai_ from Honshu to Hokkaido...and then all their sons and their brothers when they came for revenge."

Setsura smiled, red eyes bright at the thought of a challenge. "He's no Gitsune then. He sounds like a brute."

"Do not underestimate him," Gyuki cautioned. "Most things are beneath his notice, and therefore his ire, but human or youkai, he holds grudges and has been known to kill any who offend him indiscriminately."

"He's a moderate," Nurarihyon grinned a sharp grin, thinking of his son Rihan, and the changing world, and youkai's rapidly changing place in it. If they were to survive, they needed wisdom. Just as the ancient mononoke of the past took on human form and desires, things had to change. "If the west belonged to the Nura Clan, every _yakou_ would pay attention."

The west was generally unorganized, but it was also the largest territory held by any youkai ever. The land had been conquered by the Inu no Taisho, and stretched from Kyushu along the coasts nearly to Niigata. Many youkai had made it their home, but formed no organized communities and generally obeyed no master.

"And he's their _daimyou?_" Setsura spat the word derisively.

"Not particularly," Hihi shrugged. "He's nothing like the father. He owes the people on his land nothing, so they owe him nothing. The lord of the west is content to ignore the youkai living on his land so long as they acknowledge its his land first."

"They prefer it that way, I think." Gyuki muttered.

"Didn't Tokugawa drive out a hanyou son of the Inu no Taisho from Yoshiwara?" Setsuna hid her mouth behind her sleeve. "Is that the same one?"

Nurarihyon had taken up in a shiro on the outskirts of Edo for that reason. The people in the ukiyo-e district of Yamanote were already used to youkai, and no one would blink an eye at a lavish youkai and his princess wife in a wealthy artisan district.

"No, that's the favored son," Hihi's lip twitched amusedly. "Say nothing about dogs, but the Inu no Taisho had a terrible sense of humor."

"Say nothing of Inuyasha," Gyuki scowled, but there was a wicked glint in his dark eyes that told Nurarihyon that he was laughing. "We want him to agree with us, not kill us."

"Bold of you to think he could kill me," Nurarihyon said cockily. "Besides, he still can't be hung up on a three hundred year old insult by a dead man."

"Insult from his master," Setsura argued cheekily, "How much further, do you think?"

Gyuki sniffed the air. "I smell a human road nearby, and then a village beyond that, some 10 _ri_. We'll be there before the moon falls."

They walked on companionably, a steady but brisk pace.

"Do you really believe this will make a difference?" Gyuki asked, walking shoulder to shoulder with the much shorter Nurarihyon.

Youkai had, for centuries, suffered devastation upon devastation, often at the hands of their own kind. Gitsune had met her end in Kyoto a thousand and a half years ago, and the war the Nue had raged on man and mononoke alike caused them to abandon their spirit worlds and take human form. Naraku had massacred ten hundred youkai and devoured him to fuel his own desires. And now, the humans had risen, with weapons of devastating power, and established their own social order, and Nurarihyon knew that things had to be different.

He had become the Lord of Pandemonium, and youkai everywhere would learn and respect a new world, a new form of fear.

"You've seen the shogun in Edo, Gyuki," Nurarihyon's pale yellow eyes glittered with his own ambition. "This youkai is one the old heads will respect—you didn't even fear me at first, but you feared him. And the pieces I've heard don't fit. No, I believe there's an ally to be had here. And if not, at least a decent fight."

Unconsciously, his hand rose to touch his breast, where he bore the scar of Hagoromo Gitsune's excision of his heart. The most precious thing he had ever lost, searching for a good fight.

He was hardly diminished yet.

"It's said he despises hanyou," Gyuki sneered.

"What!" Setsura squawked, clinging to Nurarihyon's left elbow. "Waka-sama, I'll cut the bastard!"

Setsura was completely enamoured with Rihan, Nurarihyon's chosen heir.

"Times have changed," Nurarihyon shrugged.

"_They _ have not!" she hissed. "Mononoke don't change. I should know!"

"Careful Setsura," Hihi chided, "Your uglier face is showing."

She reddened and blew a sharp breath, freezing him where he stood. A minute later, he broke himself out, laughing softly behind his mask.

"If he has anything to say about Rihan, I'll kill him myself," he grinned cockily. "He has no heir, so if I take him, the west will be mine anyway."

Gyuki hummed. "I doubt we, as we are now, could hold more that much territory."

"Well, we'll see."

* * *

They reached Kasugayama just before daybreak; the sky was the color of an old bruise. Nurarihyon gleefully summoned his _osore,_ as his company tread through the main streets of the village. It was a decent sized farming village, with pretty straw houses and beaten earth doorsteps. Shutters shuddered as they passed and the animals bleated in fear. From one house, a baby began wailing, and the Nurarihyon delighted in it.

Setsura blew a gentle, cold breath, and the breeze stirred, chilly enough to raise every hair on every human skin. The night was eerily silent, and Nurarihyon knew that if he so desired, he could slip into every home unknown and slaughter every pathetic human where they lay, and leave again, untouched.

"He's here," Gyuki announced, quite unnecessarily, because the fear that lingered over the village like a miasma was so monolithic it was not to be believed.

"Impossible," Setusura breathed, red eyes bugging.

The power the dog youkai exuded swirled around the troupe of four like a storm, but the eye was not on the outskirts of the village.

"Oh yes," Nurarihyon murmured, his blood stirred up like boiling water, "at least from this I'll have a worthy fight."

Hihi barked out a laugh. "Yes, so worthy an opponent you won't regret your death, hm?"

He bared his teeth in a rictus grin. "We'll see. Let's go!"

On the outskirts of Kasugayama, there stood a grand _machiya_, ancient, but well-care for, and from behind it sprawled wild fields of flowers, herbs, and vegetables, all the way into the forest, which loomed like a monster over the house. Inside, a fire was lit. It made the windows look like half-lidded eyes.

Nurarihyon called up his fear and swept it around his being like a haori. "Intervene when I give you the signal."

He slipped inside the abode, his footsteps immaterial. It was a well-stocked store, with mats to sit and entertain and every traveler's dream hung up behind the counter. Overflowing baskets full of wares sat on the floor by the entrance, to be displayed come morning. The room was warm, stiflingly so, compared to the brisk evening outside. He could hear voices from the back.

He was not afraid.

"...and so the wicked fox met her end, and the boy was rewarded with the princess's hand!" A cheery young girl knelt at the bedside of a tiny old woman, washing her brow with a soaked rag. "Would you like another story, Grandmother?"

"No, thank you sweet child," the old woman said, her voice hoarse, but eyes bright. Her cheeks were reddened with a feverish glow, but her gaze lucid. "It was a wonderful story, wasn't it, Lord Sesshoumaru?"

Nurarihyon walked through the wall to stand, ghostlike, beside the sitting figure of his target.

"Hn," the so-called Lord Sesshoumaru intoned. His non-response was met with a bright laugh from the infirm woman, who turned her head toward his knee and sighed. In that sigh, her exhaustion was revealed, as every wrinkle in her face sagged deeper and her tiny, thin figure seemed to shrink even further as she curled up.

"Lord Sesshoumaru," she breathed, turned away from the fire.

Nurarihyon was watching his quarry. The youkai he sought out had no expression, but he leaned into her, and her head was nearly gathered in splendorously garbed lap. He gathered up her face in wide, long fingered hands tipped with long, delicately manicured claws. The pupils of his narrow, harvest moon eyes were so dilated they were nearly black, and glowed like festival lamps in the firelit room.

He was deaf and blind to the Nurarihyon in the room. If the Nurarihyon so desired, he could have cut down this great daiyoukai where he stood as easily as any other human.

Shriveled hands touched the wide sleeves of his kimono.

"Will you stay the night?" she whispered, or maybe spoke, her voice was so worn it was nearly inaudible. "Tomoe has missed you so…"

"I cannot stay," he intoned, running one huge thumb under her eye, as if wiping away imaginary tears. "Go to sleep."

She didn't say anything, but she smiled.

"See you soon," she said, then slipped into a dead sleep, her side rising and falling with shallow breaths. Her granddaughter hovered, barely shoulder height to the sitting youkai standing.

The Nurarihyon prowled the room, his yellow eyes focused intensely on the youkai before him. The youkai's human form was imperfect, a common marker of many older mononoke. When the dog youkai looked up from under long white lashes, his luminous eyes landed on the Nurarihyon unerringly.

"Now you see me…" Nurarihyon unsheathed Nenekirimaru with a wild grin, relishing in Seshoumaru's narrowing eyes, "now you don't!"

He threw himself back through the walls of the machiya at his full speed, chest heaving with anticipation. He touched the four long, deep stripes on his chest where Sesshoumaru had struck him.

The youkai was unbelievably fast. He'd hardly landed back in the fields behind the machiya when he was forced to dodge a flurry of clawed strikes.

For all that he was the Lord of Pandemonium, he was not a creature of brute speed or strength, and it was hardly a minute before a blow landed. An open-palm strike to the face sent him flying across the wildflower fields into a heavy old tree. Before he could recover, a broad hand wrapped effortlessly around his neck and pinned him up in the air.

The impassive face of the Lord of the west was uncomfortably close to Nurarihyon's neck, and he could not stop himself from gasping shallowly.

"What's this? An upstart ayakashi, come to challenge this Sesshoumaru? I think not…"

The grip around his throat tightened as a sweet smell perfused the air. But Nurarihyon didn't notice. He was too distracted by the burning.

"You are unworthy of my blade," the dog demon hissed tonelessly. "I think _dokkasu_ should be enough for you…"

Nurarihyon kicked angrily, but his opponent was unfazed by every strong blow. His neck was on fire, the skin peeling effortlessly beneath the ministrations of the dog's poison, and the youkai seemed unaffected by his fear.

"_Kyoka...suigetsu!"_ he gasped out with a hefty kick to the chest, and Sesshoumaru blinked as his _osore _dissolved, his grip suddenly loosened in surprise. Nurarihyon took the opportunity of distraction and slipped like vapor through his grasp, reforming his body several feet away, reclaiming his blade from where it had fallen at Sesshoumaru's initial strike.

"Sesshoumaru," he grins despite the pain, "What a magnificent creature you are. I come from Edo, to speak to the Lord of the west on the behalf of the Nura Clan!"

Sesshoumaru looked at his, his expression unreadable, before turning around abruptly and leaving.

Nurarihyon stared disbelievingly at his retreating back before spluttering, "Hey! Wait! Where the fuck do you think you're going?!"

The white figure somehow vanished into the treetops, and almost vanished from sight before Hihi intercepted him, a great black demon blade held at his throat. His porcelain mask glimmered in the waning moonlight.

Sesshoumaru withdrew a broadsword from his sash, the blade glowing a bright sickly green, and crossed blades— once, twice, thrice, driving the strong ape back into the woods. Nurarihyon's expression darkened. Hihi was the strongest youkai he had ever known, able to pulverize iron with one hit. How could this Sesshoumaru drive him back so easily? It was impossible…

"_Noroi no fubuki, fuusei kakuri!"_

The wind picked up, and Nurarihyin slipped into his ghostlike state, the blizzard blowing right through him. The machiya in the distance shuddered violently, the sound of cracking wood piercing even through the sudden howling winds summoned by the Yuki Onna.

"Yuki Onna," Nurarihyon roared, seeing that Sesshoumaru was unfazed by the blizzard, his _osore_ rising and obliterating all the icy projectiles that destroyed the wood around them, "Where's—"

Gyuki, _osore_ already released and emanating his normally overwhelming massive presence, tackled the tall white spectre through the wood straight to nearby beach. He could hear the snarls fading in the distance.

Hihi's armored chest was heaving, his blade slack in his hands as he panted.

"What...the...fuck boss!"

Though Nurarihyon couldn't see his face behind the mask, he could imagine his wild dark eyes.

Nurarihyon grinned with a confidence he didn't feel. "You have to fight mononoke like that, else they won't respect you enough to listen."

"Shit," Hihi muttered, following the path of destruction Gyuki's battle had left. Setsura stepped up next to him with a sideways glance, an unspoken question in her eyes. He nodded.

They arrived just as Gyuki, in his monstrous true form, was cut down, his _osore _shredded to pieces before the towering whirlwind of power. Sesshoumaru hardly glanced back at him, turning his bright green blade onto Hihi, who met him for worse, blow for blow. His odachi was black with his bubbling fear, his mask aglow with moonlight or drive, Nurarihyon knew not.

"_Kyoka suigetsu!"_ he whispered, sliding through the storm of Sesshoumaru's power. He would break this dog's fear, and show him his new master.

"_Noroi no fubuki, fuusei kakuri!"_

The rising tide was frozen in the blizzard, and Nurarihyon lifted his blade and cut through Sesshoumaru's great long mantle to his vulnerable neck.

Were he fighting any other youkai, it would have been a decisive blow, and the end of Sesshoumaru of the west.

The long white mantle rose up, fur writhing like the ruff of an angry wolf, and strangled Nurarihyon in its grasp, throwing him overhead into Hihi as Sesshoumaru lifted his blade.

"Enough of this!" he growled, "_Bakusaiga!"_

"DON'T LET IT HIT YOU!" Gyuki flung his prone body and shoved the two of them out of the way of the sickly glowing wave. Setsura darted between the three of them and raised her hands, her feet daintily in dancer's form.

"_Noroi no Fubuki, Yukigeshō !" _she roared, and a wall of ice rose to intercept the wave, shattering into poison dust that burned in the breeze.

"Arrrrgghhhh!" she screamed and fell, and Nurarihyon's horror, her face began dissolving, first skin, then muscle crumbling slowly enough to dust that blood dripped, dissolving before it could touch the rocky sand.

"You bastard," Nurarihyon hissed, taking Nenekirimaru and raising his fear, yellow eyes bright with rage. He burned, all of him, and he could not tell if it was rage or the poison that was lit aflame.

Sesshoumaru stood in the sky unfazed.

"Hm," he mused aloud. "A holy blade? It must be why you still stand."

"I'll destroy you for this," Nurarihyon's voice was impassively calm, for from Hagoromo Gitsune, he had learned to hold his temper in loss.

"You're already dead," Sesshoumaru replied, landing on the sand and walking toward Nurarihyon, _towards Setsura,_ and Nurarihyon stepped forward, guarding his fallen brother's body. "Bakusaiga has touched you, and so you will decay. Now or later, it doesn't matter to me." A small, close lipped smile tugged at his full lips. "But you are welcome to try, Nurarihyon, Lord of Pandemonium."

Shivers ran down Nurarihyon's spine, and he doubted he could cut through Sesshoumaru's impossible _osore_ if he tried. Even _kyoka suigetsu_ had barely bothered him, where it would stop most yokai in their tracks.

"You'll pay for this," Nurarihyon stood fast. "The Nura Gumi are one thousand strong, and we protect our own. This will not go unavenged."

"One thousand pitiful youkai beneath my notice," Sesshoumaru smiled, and his teeth were like a dog's, short and pointed with long glistening fangs. "Send them to me and they will all taste the lingering bite of Bakusaiga."

"Do you consider yourself so above those who swear sakazuki to you? Are all your men so beneath you? Or are you alone? Unwanted, undesired, even by your own father...or were tales of Inuyasha overexaggerated? Am I really speaking to a leader of yokai, _Lord of the west?"_

The smile widened, though his eyes burned. "I don't think you're looking for my father…" He tucked his long, gray hair behind a delicately pointed ear, stepping forward through the sand. His footsteps were silent even on the fine sand. Nurarihyon refused to look away from his eyes. He knew if he looked down, he'd see Setsura, dead, Hihi and Gyuki dying.

This will _not _go unavenged, he fumed, all thoughts of persuasion, of his new world order of youkai forgotten in their wake.

"Is this a game to you, Sesshoumaru?" Nurarihyon growled. "You soulless thing."

Sesshoumaru, straight faced once more cocked his head as Nurarihyon continued to meet his eyes squarely.

"You came to speak on behalf of your Clan Nurarihyon, and have disturbed me to do it. But it appears you have nothing worthwhile to say. Go and die in your home, Nurarihyon, and if I see you again, I will kill you."

"That's fine," Nurarihyon smiled without humor, "I promise this is the last you will see me alive!"

He drew on his _osore_, and let rage drown out his fear of the great dog youkai, drawing Nenekirimaru and impaling the youkai on the holy blade. Sesshoumaru gasped as the sharp katana pierced his armor and came out through his back.

A deep, loud growl shook the air between them. They were so close it was almost intimate, and Sesshoumaru's eyes bled red, beautiful face distorting as his true nature bled through. The newly elongated muzzled snapped feverishly at Nurarihyon, passing harmlessly through the ayakashi's form.

Nurarihyon was untouchable, and he withdrew Nenekirimaru, and sliced again, and again. Powerful clawed swipes passed through him, his body like ink, and his blade sung with holy, purifying power. The power of the scion of the Kekain house burned the youkai and all his trappings, and his long, silver mane whipped in the power of his _osore_ as he tried to force himself to heal.

He never relinquished Bakusaiga, and when Nurarihyon withdrew, soaked in the dog's blood, he lunged forward unerringly. Still, he could not make contact, and the deadly blade passed through Nurarihyon's incorporeal form. It was like cutting the wind, and yet, he persisted. Every parry, Nurarihyon landed a blow, until Sesshoumaru's entire garment was as crimson as the standard on his shoulder.

"Pathetic,," Nurarihyon scowled. "This is the heir of the Inu no Taisho? But you're not are you? Who was it that received the Tessaiga?"

The warning growl that ripped through the devastated beach would have sent a lesser youkai running, but Nurarihyon was too angry to care. "Perhaps if I want the west, I should seek out Inuyasha?"

Flesh and bone squished and cracked as the enraged mononoke healed himself, jaw agape and teeth bared in a rictus grimace as bright red demon eyes flashed in towering rage. The wind stirred so much that the sky itself was obscured, buried in darkness under the force of demonic power. Sesshoumaru's wrists deformed, skin writhing like silk in a breeze as he sheathed Bakusaiga, elonged claws dripping acid-bright poison. A nightmare given form.

"Inuyasha…" he growled, his words barely human. "Do not speak of him!"

"I'll speak of whatever I want, you base creature," Nurarihyon reveled in his opponent's rage, his own anger his only protection. Fear trembled beneath it all, but if he feared Sesshoumaru, that would be the end of it all. He slipped from his haori a small bowl, and sake, and quickly filled the bowl as the mononoke opposing him glowed, yellow light illuminating the jagged marks beneath his skin.

"_Ougi Meikyō Shisui, Sakura_," he intoned viciously, blowing gently on the rippling liquid. Bright blue flames swirled out of the bowl, rising in a pillar to swallow up Sesshoumaru in its grasp. He stepped back, holding the bowl steady as the flames burned higher and higher. Even a shadow was impossible to see through the brightness.

"Goodbye," he said, grief filling his heart at last, and regret at this foolish overture. He turned his back on the burning mess. He knew it was too easy to hope that reasoning with his kind would be enough. Youkai understood the language of power, and sometimes, when they were too stubborn to listen…

"You fight well...for an ayakashi," Sesshoumaru's voice, even if a bit ragged, caused him to jerk around, a stab of terror through his psyche at the nearly unclothed, but mostly untouched mononoke behind him.

His fine lord's clothes had burned away to nothing, and he stood barefoot on a lake of glass where the sand had melted from the force of the meikyou shisui. Only his great fur mantle, shuddering and moving as if it were alive, preserved his modesty. The long claws of his toes clicked on the glass surface as he strode ominously towards Nurarihyon. His yellow narrow eyes were half-lidded and hungry, considering.

Impossibly, his _osore_, previously broken by the _kyoka suigetsu_ and _meikyou shisui_, rose again, and the terror Nurarihyon had been able to defeat with righteous anger rose unbidden.

Hagoromo Gitsune had been mad, and uncaring for her life, consumed only with obsession with her duty as a vessel for her beloved son. That fear, Nurarihyon had understood and been able to destroy, and his _osore_ had eventually overcome her. What did this mad dog without a master fear? What drove him? Nurarihyon was reckless but canny, and he had never failed to overcome an enemy's fear. So where did this power come from?

"It is strange. Are you a ghost or a youkai? I have used the wrong blade for you ayakashi, if you still stand…" Sesshoumaru leaned into Nurarihyon and examined him, as if he were some mysterious aberration. He breathed deeply, but softly, and cocked his head in thought.

"It does not matter," he said eventually. "You said you came to speak. So speak. And if I do not like what you say, then I will kill you."

He glanced down at Setsura's body— now unmistakably dead, half-decayed as it was. Yet, the smell of death was obscured by the sweet pungent odor of the dog youkai's poison that lingered over the entire field.

This was no youkai he wanted in his hyakki, he realized as he looked into cold yellow eyes. Was this the demon that had caressed the face of the old woman so tenderly?

The air was still dark, a leftover effect from the power of the the _daiyoukai_ before him.

"I have come to speak to you about power," he said, mustering up some of his old charisma through his grief, "and humans."

"The two are anathema," he scoffed, "humans have no power. If that is all…"

"Most youkai—"

"I," he interrupted, "am not most. There is no power humans have that I would seek. No power from them I would ever lower myself to take. Human and youkai need only fear me and stay out of my way. I do not concern myself with the affairs of lower creatures, be they human or youkai."

He turned on his heel and strode away, naked, leaving Nurarihyon speechless, mouth agape in disbelief.

"And what of the girl?" Nurarihyon shouted, unwilling to leave Setsura. "Don't you protect her?"

Sesshoumaru stopped. "What do you know?"

"I saw you," Nurarihyon's eyes gleamed; he had the mononoke's attention on him again. "The reverence in her eyes. She feared you. That is real power." There was much said underneath that word fear; when Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed Nurarihyon knew he had heard the unsaid message.

Fear, but admiration, loyalty, reverence, and faith. Fear, but respect. The kind of fear the _kami_ mustered, the fear that was as close to love as youkai such as themselves could feel.

"...hn," Sesshoumaru hummed noncommittally, but when he looked at Nurarihyon there was something in his eyes that said he was looking at the ayakashi for the first time.

"You're right when you say most youkai are pathetic," Nurarihyon closed his eyes, remembering sorrowfully his clan: Gyuki's stern wisdom, Setsura's spicy wit and sharp laughter, Hihi's quiet and loyal strength. He would avenge them, but the day he defeated Sesshoumaru of the west would not be today. He still wasn't strong enough, and that rankled for the Lord of Pandemonium to admit.

"Most youkai wouldn't know power if it hit them upside the face with a wet fish. Too weak to do anything but prey upon pathetic humans, devour their terror and flesh." He wet his dry lips. "It makes them weak, dependent on _ikigumo_ and trinkets and baubles."

"Yes," Sesshoumaru's ruff shuddered, rearranging itself on his broad shoulders. It was disconcerting to watch, and Nurarihyon suddenly was at a loss for words. What do you say to the man who carelessly slaughtered your clan, yet embodied everything you desired for yourself?

"How?" Nurarihyon asked, ire eclipsed only by his hatred for Hagoromo Gitsune welling in his heart. "How can you be this, and be alone."

An unpleasant smile distorted his inhumanly beautiful face. "Foolish youkai of the west are looking for their lord, not I. When they ask for this Sesshoumaru, I will not turn them away...so long as they fear me."

So simple, yet so petty. Nurarihyon's lip curled in distaste.

Before he could say another word, Sesshoumaru drew another blade, a slim, blue-silver katana. Ignoring the threat of Nenekirimaru at his throat, he stared down Nurarihyon until the younger youkai retreated from Setsura's body. Something about that blade whispered. Its power emanated in the world between, the spirit where fear existed, the spaces where Nurarihyon vanished when he walked as a ghost.

A pure white light shone in Sesshoumaru's iris, and he swung the glowing katana as he did everything— decisively, without explanation.

And Nurarihyon had no attention left to spare for the wayward lord. He dropped to his knees as Setsura's desiccated body rewound itself, growing back bone, flesh, and skin, her kimono still desecrated but dead body untouched like freshly fallen snow. And then, her chest moved— one breath, two, then another, again and again until she gasped, alive, red eyes blinking open.

He looked up, jaw slack as Gyuki and Hihi both stirred in the sand, and the sun began to peek through a grey-white-blue morning sky. A few flecks of cold water stirred his face, and he looked up to meet the tall dog demon's imperious glare. The blue blade was sheathed again, in a plain wooden hilt tucked behind his back in his breathing mantle. Pink stripes ran up and down his arms to his chest, stomach, and naked hipbones.

He smiled a humorless smile, just the tiniest upturn of impassive lips, and Nurarihyon felt a shudder of fear down his tense spine as Setsura wrapped arms around his neck as she shook in shock. He raised an idle hand to comfort her.

"Ayakashi," Sesshoumaru sighed, "Take your clan and go. And in one hundred years, let us see whether your clan of one thousand will stand against my one blade."

"Ten thousand," he shot back, clutching Setsura tighter to hide his shaking hands, "in one hundred years, the Nura Gumi will be ten thousand strong, and the name Sesshoumaru of the west will be forgotten."

"Oh?"

"And in five hundred years," he resisted Setsura's attempts to pull away, "We shall be the greatest youkai to walk this land, and you shall fear us."

"And if you fail in five hundred years, I think your life will belong to me," Sesshoumaru's eyes were bright and terrible, but Nurarihyon no longer felt afraid, thinking of his magnificent heir, and the glorious future he saw for his clan.

Sesshoumaru walked away, towards the village, vanishing in a blast of bright light.

"Pursue him?" Gyuki asked, resurrected in the same perfect condition as Setsura. He sounded apprehensive, unheard of for the beast of Nejireme, who had effortlessly slewn his maker and the wolves that dared to challenge him for his home.

"No," Nurarihyon said, stroking the head of the wolf pelt on his shoulder. "There's nothing more to say, I think."

Hihi gathered up the fallen Yuki-Onna and followed as Nurarihyon set a much slower pace into the destroyed woods.

"I was awake," Gyuki broke the silence. "He is a fearsome beast. His blade healed me..."

"More than a healing blade," Hihi shuddered, "They were going to bear me away into the gates of Jigoku…"

Silence overtook them.

"So that was a dud," Setsura huffed, "You're going to kill us one day, boss!"

"No," he said sharply. "Never again. We've sent emissaries to Kyushu and Hokkaido, and surely we'll have better news there."

"Will we see them at the solstice, I wonder?" Gyuki muttered. "Will summer nights be times of bloodshed and fear, or for once...something more?"

"We'll see what Karasu-Tengu has to say," Nurarihyon grinned.

Setsura laughed breathlessly. "Think we'd have better luck with the hanyou?"

* * *

Sesshoumaru stood, a silent wraith, watching the party of four leave Kasugayama.

Rin's land and home had been wrecked in the fight, but both Rin and Tomoe's terror had been appeased easily enough at his presence, no matter how brief. Human trappings, so easily destroyed, quick to transform from shelter to tomb.

He had followed them for days, undetected even by their beast or their ape, _yoki_ so immense it was beyond their senses.

He needed no stronghold nor clan to control his land. Sesshoumaru of the west had walked every inch of it, and neither conditions nor opponent would overcome him.

_Osore._ Fear. The word appealed to him greatly. Oftentimes, he had wondered why Rin, Jaken, and Ah-Un followed him so persistently. Kohaku, though he was dead and gone now, had made his own way in the world, yet still deferred to his true lord and master, even as he swore himself to the cause of the taijiya. Kagura's red angry eyes, and beauteous smile as she found her freedom in death. Rin's six hanyou sons, stumbling at his heels like ducklings until they were fearsome in their own right.

The look in Rin's eyes, when she was resurrected and wordless, terrified but unyielding in her faith and service. She was so pure in her fear of him that she could fear nothing but being parted, and this purity was a power so close to invincibility that he would have died rather than give her up. Even as love, that strange human thing, and obedience burgeoned in her, she always feared him.

Kagome, Inuyasha's foolish woman, had squealed and called his affection for Rin 'love.' Sesshoumaru had known that was not it, but had said nothing, as that wretched female thing had been too stubborn, too _human_ to understand it. That was the curse that humans alone bore, the thing that broke his great and terrible father, that broke Inuyasha.

Sesshoumaru did not love.

Inuyasha knew it, and hated him for his inability for many years. Sesshoumaru did not care, because even as his brother hated him, he still feared him. That was why his life belonged to him, for all he tried to throw off the yoke of his heritage. Sesshoumaru knew well envy and fear under a theatrical mask of hatred. Had he not feared his father?

At last he understood. The power he sought was not _yoki_, it was _osore._

They reached the western border of his land, and the defeated party trudged out of sight. Briefly, Sesshoumaru had considered pursuing them. In the days when he hunted Naraku, borders meant nothing to him. He hunted his quarry all across the four islands, and not a so-called lord dared challenge him. But he abstained.

From Nurarihyon, he obtained what he wanted.

Understanding was as much power as any blade, and came at a much higher price.

**Thanks for reading! I've got loads more in this verse, including a story for every generation! Nurarihyon no Mago is a story with a huge cast of characters that span an absurdly long period of time (Nurarihyon's age seems to have started in the Edo period or at the very end of the Sengoku Jidai, Rihan ruled the Golden age from the Meiji Era all the way until his death in the early 2000s, and of course we have Rikuo determined to bring his clan out of decline in 2010!) and Inuyasha...I mean time travel, come on, the possibilities are endless there. Don't expect much romance (except for one IP one-shot that won't stop growing featuring my babies Wakana and Rihan 3) but yeah, who knows. Maybe this'll just languish and die like my Merlin/HP crossover. **

**Please leave a review and concrit! I always reply.**

**Thanks,**

**YellowWomanontheBrink**

**October 12, 2019**

**12:05 AM**


End file.
